{"id":582252,"date":"2021-07-04T16:06:14","date_gmt":"2021-07-04T20:06:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=582252"},"modified":"2021-07-04T16:06:17","modified_gmt":"2021-07-04T20:06:17","slug":"what-we-really-need-to-do-to-make-college-affordable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/what-we-really-need-to-do-to-make-college-affordable\/","title":{"rendered":"What We Really Need To Do To Make College Affordable"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fwhat-we-really-need-to-do-to-make-college-affordable%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=582252&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/9BD56EF4-4068-4112-9968-F7D1108A5911-scaled-e1625425605544.jpeg?w=1200&amp;h=800&amp;ixlib=react-9.0.3\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p>College costs continue to surge, with&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mercatus.org\/publications\/education-policy\/reevaluating-effects-federal-financing-higher-education\">tuition increasing 238%&nbsp;<\/a>between 1980 and 2016, far outpacing the 191.3% inflation rate during the same period.<\/p>\n<p>Most students now&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.valuepenguin.com\/student-loans\/average-cost-of-college\">pay between $6,000 and $15,000 just in tuition<\/a>&nbsp;annually for public and private colleges in the United States. And although federal student aid has&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/prestoncooper2\/2019\/09\/13\/pell-grants-have-kept-pace-with-inflation\/?sh=722e928330b2\">more than kept pace with inflation<\/a>&nbsp;over the past several decades, it has not kept pace with excessive increases in college costs, leading Americans to amass a staggering $1.7 trillion in outstanding student loan debt.<\/p>\n<p>Colleges and universities are the beneficiaries of these massive student loans, atop other federal subsidies they receive. In 2019, higher education institutions received $91 billion in federal student loans and $30 billion in federal student grants.<\/p>\n<p>Increasing federal subsidies for the status quo merely privileges a traditional college-going pathway over all other forms of learning. It also stifles innovation in the marketplace by protecting colleges and universities from having to compete fairly with higher education alternatives or share an appropriate level of financial risk for outcomes realized by students.<\/p>\n<p>Policymakers have centered the higher education debate around three proposed areas for increased federal spending: free community college, doubling the Pell Grant award, and student loan forgiveness. Each deserves scrutiny because each misses an opportunity to address the root cause of ballooning college costs.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Free community college<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Community colleges already provide the most affordable college options, with an average annual resident tuition of&nbsp;$3,340. But the free college proposals contain perverse incentives that could lead states to increase the price tag to secure a larger share of federal matching funds. They may simply serve to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heritage.org\/education\/commentary\/the-high-cost-free-college-tuition\">stimulate additional price inflation<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Additionally, a federal-state partnership based on&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2021\/04\/28\/upshot\/biden-free-community-college.html\">tuition replacement will be problematic<\/a>&nbsp;because the price tag for community colleges varies widely. States that have let tuition costs soar would be rewarded with a higher-dollar federal bailout. In contrast, states that have invested in keeping college affordable would be penalized.<\/p>\n<p><b>Doubling the Pell Grant Award<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Pell Grants already cover up to&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/financialaidtoolkit.ed.gov\/tk\/announcement-detail.jsp?id=pell-2021-22\">$6,495<\/a>&nbsp;of college expenses each year for students with a demonstrated financial need, currently up to 12 semesters, amounting to nearly $39,000 in federal aid that doesn\u2019t need to be repaid. In mid-June, lawmakers introduced the\u202f<a href=\"https:\/\/www.insidehighered.com\/quicktakes\/2021\/06\/17\/democrats-introduce-legislation-double-pell-grant\">Pell Grant Preservation and Expansion Act of 2021<\/a>&nbsp;to double the maximum Pell Grant award amount within five years, extend lifetime eligibility from 12 to 18 semesters, and make the Pell Grant mandatory, not discretionary, federal spending. If enacted, a student receiving a maximum Pell Grant award of about $13,000 per year for nine years would receive $117,000 over their lifetime.&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mercatus.org\/publications\/education-policy\/reevaluating-effects-federal-financing-higher-education\">Research on tuition rates and federal student aid<\/a>&nbsp;suggests we should expect tuition and fees to rise in kind as federal Pell Grant subsidies grow exponentially.<\/p>\n<p>Other proposals to&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.aacc.nche.edu\/advocacy\/policy-positions-analyses\/summary-of-kaine-portman-short-term-pell-amendment-to-s-1260\/\">expand students\u2019 options to use Pell funds for short-term programs<\/a>&nbsp;still limit these to programs offered only by higher education institutions, so it leaves an entire sector of innovative non-college training programs off the table. Any increases to Pell that still limit it to colleges and universities reward an already costly higher education system with more federal subsidies, leaving taxpayers, even those with no postsecondary education, to foot the bill.<\/p>\n<p><b>Student loan forgiveness<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Broad student loan forgiveness does little to address the rising cost of education. It punishes those who work hard to save for their education or make conscious trade-offs to pay for their education instead of taking on student loans. Further, it helps the affluent much more than the less well-off, with&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/review.chicagobooth.edu\/economics\/2021\/article\/how-get-help-student-debt-holders-who-really-need-it\">most of the economic benefit accruing to high-income individuals<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Plus, forgiveness programs already exist through public service loan forgiveness and income-driven repayment options, which sets repayment amounts based on individuals\u2019 earnings and family size.&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2021\/03\/23\/the-us-already-has-student-debt-forgivenessbut-barely-anyone-gets-it.html\">Forgiveness programs admittedly have limitations<\/a>, including burdensome bureaucratic requirements, but serve as an alternative to broad forgiveness. Policy reforms should ensure students don\u2019t accrue more debt than necessary and should drive institutions to be more transparent about students\u2019 return-on-investment based on costs of attendance versus expected earnings.<\/p>\n<p><b>The status quo funding model needs to change<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Efforts to make college free or double the maximum Pell Grant Award and make the federal government the primary or single payer will do little to control or mitigate rising tuition costs. Nor does it make sense to continue funneling billions of taxpayer dollars into a system that has yielded only&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/nscresearchcenter.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Completions_Report_2020.pdf\">marginal gains in six-year and eight-year college completion rates<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Title IV system should be improved, but the answer isn\u2019t more federal spending \u2013 it\u2019s a better utilization of existing resources. And a better system allows for more options that fit the needs of learners in the 21st-century economy. For many learners, that might still be a traditional associate or bachelor\u2019s degree. For others, it might be a higher education alternative.<\/p>\n<p>Learners should have the freedom to use their need-based funding to pursue high-quality, individualized pathways aligned with their goals and aspirations and not be locked into programs offered only by colleges and universities.<\/p>\n<p>The proposed changes to the Title IV system do nothing to help them. Instead, changes reward an already costly higher education system with more federal subsidies, leaving taxpayers, even those with no postsecondary education, to foot the bill.<\/p>\n<p><i>The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author\u2019s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.<\/i><\/p>\n<p><i>Steven Taylor is a senior fellow on postsecondary education at the Charles Koch Institute.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>College costs continue to surge, with\u00a0tuition increasing 238%\u00a0between 1980 and 2016, far outpacing the 191.3% inflation rate during the same period.Most students now\u00a0pay between $6,000 and $15,000 just in tuition\u00a0annually &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2313997,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/9BD56EF4-4068-4112-9968-F7D1108A5911-scaled-e1625425605544.jpeg?w=1200&h=800&ixlib=react-9.0.3","fifu_image_alt":"What We Really Need To Do To Make College Affordable","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-582252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/9BD56EF4-4068-4112-9968-F7D1108A5911-scaled-e1625425605544.jpeg?w=1200&h=800&ixlib=react-9.0.3","fifu_image_alt":"What We Really Need To Do To Make College Affordable","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=582252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582252\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2313997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}